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December 24, 2025 15 mins

Do you ever walk away from a conversation feeling exhausted because you said way more than you meant to?

In this episode of Speak Honest, we unpack the real reason you talk too much when you’re nervous. This isn’t about learning to “say less” or fixing your communication. It’s about understanding the story underneath your urge to overexplain, the fear of being misunderstood, and the quiet self judgment that kicks in when connection feels shaky. I’ll walk you through why overexplaining is actually a nervous system protection strategy and how to shift it by questioning the story instead of performing for understanding.

You might want to listen if:

• You replay conversations in your head wondering why you said so much
 • You overexplain when you’re late, emotional, or afraid of being judged
 • You feel a surge of panic when silence shows up in conversations
 • You struggle to trust that your words can be simple and still be enough
 • You want to communicate calmly without feeling exposed or unsafe

FIND OUT MORE!


DISCLAIMER: Speak Honest podcast content is informational, not professional or medical advice. Jenn is an ICF relationship coach, not a licensed therapist. Consult health professionals for specific concerns. Client opinions do not reflect Speak Honest’s stance. We aim for accuracy but are not liable for errors or outcomes from this information.


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Transcript

Episode Transcript

Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
SPEAKER_00 (00:05):
Hello, and welcome to Speak Honest.
I am your host and certifiedrelationship coach, Jennifer
Noble.
It has been my passion for overa decade to help women like you
heal.
What's been holding you backfrom having the relationships
you deserve?
Are you struggling with arelationship where you can't
seem to voice your emotions,needs, and boundaries without

(00:26):
having it blow up in your face?
Then you have found the rightpodcast, my friend.
Get ready for practical tips,empowering truths, and honest
conversations.
Now let's dive in.
Hello, ladies, and welcome backto another episode of Speak
Honest.
I am Jen Noble, your go-torelationship coach and author of
Dance of Attachment.
And today we are diving intoanother big one.

(00:49):
Because if you have ever foundyourself talking in circles,
rambling, repeating the samesentence three different ways,
or feeling like you have todefend every inch of your
emotional experience, then thisepisode is for you.
As you're listening today, Iwant you to think about the last
time you walked away from aconversation feeling completely

(01:12):
wrung out because you said waytoo much.
You gave context, then morecontext, and then even more
context because you wanted sobadly to be understood.
We're gonna talk about why thishappens and what to do instead.
And before we jump in, I want toremind you that my Speak Honest
membership is open.
And if you've been listening andthinking, oh my goodness, Jen, I

(01:34):
need this.
I need women who get it, then Iwant you to know you can come
and join us at speak-honest.comat any time.
It's where I teach you how toregulate your emotions, how to
check in before over-explainingyourself, how to understand your
attachment patterns, and how tocommunicate in a way that
actually lands.

(01:55):
Alright, now let's dive in tothe episode.
Here's the truth no one reallylikes talking about.
Overexplaining isn't actuallyabout explaining at all.
It's about managing someoneelse's perception of you.
It's the quiet panic that says,oh my goodness, please see me

(02:18):
the way that I hope that you seeme.
Please don't get this wrong.
Please don't think I'm too muchor too sensitive or too
confusing.
Dear God, please see me the wayI hope you see me.
Do you hear that?
Most women who overexplain,they're not trying to convince
the other person.
They're trying to rescue theirown reputation in real time.

(02:38):
It's like this invisible PR teamthat pops up in your head and
goes, wait, wait, wait, let mefix how this sounded.
But suddenly, what happens?
You're giving extra details.
You have extra context.
There's extra emotionalbackground, extra everything.
And not because it's helpful atall.

(02:59):
In fact, oftentimes it does theopposite.
But because silence feelsunsafe.
The moment you stop talking, youlose control of the story.
So you talk more.
And here's the wildest part.
When you overexplain, you're notactually communicating.
You're more like you'reauditioning.

(03:20):
You're trying to get the role ofthe reasonable one or the calm
one or the one who's totallyunderstood, which means the
entire time, what are you doing?
You're performing instead ofconnecting.
No wonder it's exhausting.
Over explaining is theperformance you learned to put
on so no one could misunderstandyou in a way that hurt you.

(03:43):
But the cost?
It's huge.
Because the more you perform,the less present you feel.
And the less present you feel,the less connected the other
person feels.
So now you're explaining evenharder to fix the problem that
overexplaining created in thefirst place.
And round and round we go.

(04:04):
This is why it feels soexhausting.
You're not having aconversation.
You're basically running amarathon with your words.
Now let's go a little deeperbecause overexplaining isn't
random.
There is a pattern underneathit.
And once you see it, honestly,you can't unsee it.
So there's always a moment whereit starts, a tiny flicker,

(04:27):
something shifts inside of youbefore a single extra word even
comes out.
It can be as small as someonepausing too long before
responding.
Or maybe it's their eyebrowsthat get pulled together.
Or your brain imagining whatthey might be thinking.
It's barely anything on theoutside, but inside your body,

(04:48):
it feels it like an alarm.
And the alarm says, fix it, fixit right now, clarify it, make
it make sense.
I need to stay safe.
And it happens so fast, right?
That's that hypervigilance wetalk about a lot.
It's so fast that you don't evenrealize you're slipping out of
your adult self and into youryounger version of you who
learned that being misunderstoodwas dangerous.

(05:12):
The version of you who learnedthat if you didn't explain
yourself perfectly, then thingswould fall apart and they would
leave.
The love would pull away,someone would shut down,
explode, or decide you were theproblem.
So you learned to preempt thedanger with your words.
Over explaining became yourseatbelt.

(05:34):
But I want you to know when youstart explaining and explaining
and explaining, you're notactually communicating the
truth.
You're just trying to controlthe outcome.
And we just have to be honestabout that.
And it's okay if it's hard tohear that right now.
Resistance is perfectly normal.
But you're trying to prevent afeared version of the story from

(05:56):
taking root in their head.
Do you see how you'recontrolling their story, their
narrative?
It's almost like you're fightinga ghost.
Not the person in front of you,but the imagined version of what
they might think or feel aboutyou.
That's intense.
And it's a lot because it's noteven real.
And that ghost, whoo, she isloud.

(06:18):
And that's why over-explainingit feels urgent.
And this is why your voicechanges.
It's why your chest tightens.
It's where your words tumble outfaster than when you can
organize them.
You're not reacting to theconversation.
You're not present at themoment, connecting with the
person across from you.
You're reacting to the fearunderneath what is being said.

(06:40):
And once you understand that, Ipromise you, things start to
change because you stop seeingover-explaining as a
communication error that you canfix.
And you start seeing it as aprotection strategy.
And if it's a protectionstrategy, that means that you
can learn a new strategy.
So let's talk about how to learna new strategy.

(07:02):
Because the real strategy isn'tabout talking less.
In fact, the more you try to dothat, the worse it becomes,
trust me.
It just ends up barreling out ofyour mouth like verbal diarrhea.
So what we really want to do isabout question the story that
hijacks your nervous system inthe first place.
Because every time youoverexplain, there is a story

(07:24):
underneath it.
A story about what you'reafraid, they're really thinking
about you.
But here's the thing, and Ireally want you to hear this.
The thing you're afraid thatthey are thinking about is
almost always the thing yousecretly believe about yourself.
All right, so let me say thatagain because I want you to
really hear that.
The thing you think someone elseis thinking about you is what

(07:44):
you think about yourself.
So let me show you how thisworks.
Let's say you show up somewherelate, and instantly your brain
goes into, oh no, they're gonnathink I don't care, they're
gonna think I'm irresponsible,they're gonna think I didn't try
hard enough.
So what do you do?
You launch into all the excuses,the traffic, the parking, the
coffee spill, the whole novel.
You over-explain everything.

(08:07):
Not because they asked.
Honestly, they probably don'tcare, but because you need to
tell them.
It's not because they needed tohear it.
It's because you're trying tooutrun the story you're already
telling yourself.
You're not trying to convincethem, you're trying to convince
yourself that you're still good,still worthy, and still allowed

(08:29):
to be there.
Overexplaining is just youtrying to cover up your internal
fears.
It's a self-defense mechanismagainst your own self-judgment.
Are you seeing how this works?
So the new strategy is this.
Pause before you talk and askyourself, what am I afraid they
think about me right now?

(08:50):
And then do I think that aboutmyself?
Now, sometimes it's really hardto answer this question.
When I talk to my clients, I'llsay, okay, well, do you think
you're lazy?
And they're like, No, I know Iwork hard.
But the truth here is, if you'retrying so hard to get someone
else to understand that you'renot lazy, then you believe it
about yourself somewhere, or youbelieve that laziness is bad, or

(09:11):
you believe something bad aboutthe laziness that you believe
about yourself.
And that's the story we need towatch and we need to catch, and
we need to say, you know what?
I did try hard to get here.
I am useful, I am capable.
And yeah, sometimes I'm late,but that's okay.
So then you show up, and insteadof launching into a million

(09:32):
excuses, you say, Thank you foryour patience.
And in that moment, you reclaimyour power.
Because once you name the story,it loses its grip.
You no longer perform to fixtheir perception.
You're dealing with your own.
So instead of spiraling intoover-explanation, you can say
something like, Hey, I'm late.

(09:55):
Thanks.
Thanks for waiting.
Oh my god, can you believe thetraffic out there?
It's okay to talk about stuff.
But it's about being clean, it'sabout being grounded, it's about
being an adult, right?
No story, no panic, noperforming.
Your new strategy is to catchthe story, question it, and
refuse to let it run theconversation.

(10:18):
Once you shift that, yourcommunication becomes clearer
because you aren't fighting yourinvisible fears anymore.
But there is one more part thatno one prepares you for.
I do want to touch on realquick.
When you stop overexplaining andyou start actually questioning
the story instead, you're goingto feel uncomfortable.

(10:39):
Like wildly uncomfortable.
This isn't easy.
There's a reason why we don't dothis.
Because for the first time,you're not scrambling to manage
someone else's perception ofyou.
You're just sitting with it onyour own.
So when you say, hey, I'm late,thanks for waiting, your brain
might actually start panicking.
It's gonna whisper, say more,fix this.
They're judging you.

(11:00):
But that's just the old storytrying to drag you back into
performance mode.
So I just want you to catch it,that's all.
This new strategy requires youto hold yourself steady while
your nervous system freaks outfor just a few more seconds.
It requires you to breathethrough the silence that used to
terrify you.
Imagine that.
You just say, thank you so muchfor waiting, and then you just

(11:23):
let it sit there, hanging overboth of your heads.
It requires you to trust thatyou are still a good person,
still worthy, still allowed totake up space, make mistakes,
even when you don't present as aperfect person, or you don't
have a perfect explanation foreverything.

(11:44):
And here's what starts to happenover time.
You realize the world doesn'tfall apart when you don't defend
yourself, and people don't reactthe way your story predicted,
and no one is thinking thecatastrophic thoughts you
convinced yourself they werethinking.
You begin to see that mostpeople just accept what you say.

(12:05):
They move on.
They kind of don't care.
They're fine.
And because they're fine, yournervous system starts to become
fine.
You realize, oh, I didn't needall those extra words.
I didn't need to justify myself.
I didn't need to protect myselffrom a story that wasn't even
mine to begin with.
And that's when yourcommunication starts to feel

(12:27):
clean.
Remember, this takes time,multiple experiences over
multiple times.
But that's when you start totrust yourself again, and you
start to realize you werecarrying a weight that you never
needed to carry.
And the more you practice this,the more your inner world will
quiet down.
It takes repetition for this tohappen.

(12:48):
It takes repetition to stopassuming the worst, to stop
performing and to stop bracingfor imaginary judgments that
really you're just judgingyourself for.
You finally get to show up asthe grounded, regulated,
beautiful version of you that Iknow is in there, the one who
doesn't need to earnunderstanding with a five-minute

(13:10):
monologue.
This is what securecommunication actually feels
like.
Not perfect, not polished, justhonest and uncluttered.
Alright, my lovelies, this iswhat I want you to sit with this
week.
Not the old habit ofover-explaining, but the story

(13:31):
underneath it, the fearunderneath it, and the truth
that you are allowed to show upwithout performing your worth.
And if this hit you in the chesttoday, it's because you are
ready for this shift.
You are ready to stop carryingstories that were never yours to
begin with.
You are ready to communicate ina way that feels clean and calm

(13:54):
and connected.
And I want you to know you donot have to do this alone.
Inside of the Speak Honestmembership, this is the work
that we practice together.
How to regulate your body, howto question the story instead of
letting it spiral inside of you,how to communicate in a way that
creates closeness instead ofchaos.

(14:14):
The membership is full of womenjust like you who want real
change, real support, and realconnection.
And if you've been thinkingabout joining, then consider
this your nudge.
You can go over tospeak-honest.com or you can
click on the link in the shownotes to learn more.
I just want you to know that Iappreciate you spending this

(14:34):
time with me, especially duringthe holiday season.
I adore you so much.
So let's all take a breath,let's question our stories, and
let's speak from our truth.
All right, everyone, I willspeak with you next week.
Take care.
As we wrap up today'sconversation, always remember

(14:54):
that healing is a journey, not adestination.
And it is an honor to be a partof your healing journey.
If you want to dig deeper intothe topics we cover today, be
sure to head over to our shownotes where you can find all of
the valuable informationmentioned in today's episode
right there.
And please remember to rate,review, and subscribe if you
enjoyed today's podcast.

(15:16):
Your feedback means the world tous and helps others discover our
podcast.
Until next time, remember tospeak up and speak honest.
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